Garment protector



S 11 5, mm 1?. "a". FENCE EEELEW GARMENT PROTECTOR Filed Aug. 26, 1946 Wad E3 Fauna Patented Sept. 1950 2,521,350 GARMENT PROTECTOR Fred T. Pence, Shclbyville, Ind .assignor to Kennedy Car Liner and Bag Company, Inc., a corporation of Indiana Application August 26, 1946, Serial No. 693,131

1 Claim. 1

This invention relates to flexible shoulder protectors for dresses, coats, suits and the like, when supported on hangers. Their field of application includes stores, cleaning establishments and homes.

It is essential that sho ulder protectors of the type described provide fullness, particularly at the shoulder ends, so as to be readily slipped over the shoulder portions of the garment and to remain more or less self-distended so as to exert no undue pressure against the portions of the garment which the protector envelopes.

In conventional shoulder protectors, fullness is obtained by the provision of an infolded pleat in the shoulder ends. This has the normal tendency to collapse when the shoulder protector is removed from the garment, it being generally necessary to reopen it when replacing it upon the garment, and frequently it must be coaxed into position by pulling it here and there, making its use somewhat of a nuisance operation.

Shoulder protectors are generally made from front and back panels of flexible sheet material united along the top by a longitudinal seam which serves to support the shoulder protector longitudinally so that it is more or less self-shape-retaining in a longitudinal direction like a coat hanger.

In constructions wherein the infolded end pleat is employed, the longitudinal seam necessarily terminates at the apex of the pleat so that the shoulder portions are left without the benefit of the stiffness inherent in the longitudinal seam.

One of the objects of the present invention is to provide a shoulder protector in which the top longitudinal seam extends from end to end of the protector, fullness being obtained by means of darts in the shoulder portions, extending from the top seam.

Another object of the invention is the provision of a shoulder protector in which self-shape-retaining properties are imparted by the longitudinal top seam extending throughout the shoulder portions and dart seams in the shoulder portions extending laterally in opposite directions from the top seam, whereby when once opened the shoulder protector normally maintains its open shape.

Other objects of the invention will appear as the following description of a preferred and practical embodiment thereof proceeds.

In the drawings which accompany and form a part of the following specification:

Figure 1 is a front elevation of the shoulder protector, associated with a coat hanger;

Figure 2 is a perspective view showing the blank for one-half of the shoulder protector in an intermediate stage of manufacture;

Figure 3 is a perspective view of one shoulder portion of the protector in expanded position;

Figure 4 is a perspective view of the shoulder portion in a modified form of the invention,

Referring now in detail to the several figures, the numeral i represents as a whole a shoulder protector embodying the principles of the invention. This is constructed of two identical members of flexible sheet material, the front and back panels 2 and 3, one of which is shown in Figure 2. Each of these panels in the fiat has the dart openings 4. To give fullness, the margins of the material at the edges of the dart openings are brought together in lapped relation, as shown in Figure 1, and suitably united as by heat sealing where the material employed is thermoplastic. The two panels with the darts 5 thus completed are placed with their upper edges in coincidence, overfolded by a binding 7, and stitched together through the binding longitudinally from end to end, except at the center where an opening 8 is left, having bound edges, for the protrusion of a coat hanger. The bottom edge of the shoulder protector is also bound, but this feature is merely incidental to the completion of the device, and is not an essential of the invention.

The bound top seam forms a relatively stiff backbone which renders the shoulder protector largely self-shape-retaining in a longitudinal direction so that it can be conveniently slipped over the shoulders of a garment supported upon the coat hanger.

When in collapsed fiat position, the fullness imparted by the darts is absorbed by the wrinkling of the material in the region adjacent the darts. This adapts the shoulder protector to stacking.

When the shoulder portion have once been opened out, the top seam and. the darts which radiate oppositely from a common point in the top seam form a spider of ribs, as shown in Figure 3 over each shoulder portion, which hold the shoulder portion distended.

Figure 4 shows a modified form of the invention in which the dart openings i are substituted by pointed pleats 9 in the material, the folds of which may be united, forming darts.

While Figure 1 shows the longitudinal seam stitched and the darts adhesively united, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that these are equivalent uniting expedients which may be interchangeably employed without departing from the invention.

The material of the shoulder protector may be of any eli ible character and either transparent, translucent or opaque.

What I claim as my invention is:

Shape retaining protector for the upper portions of garments on hangers comprising, similar front and back panels of flexible material having straight bottom edges and continuously curving tQ edges defining neck and shoulder portions, an upstanding seam joining the top edges of the panels from end to end and forming a rib for longitudinally stiffening the protector, and transverse stiffening ribs intersecting the longitudinal ribs at substantially right angles thereto in the region of the shoulder portions of the protector, said transverse ribs oomprising the downturned and joined edges of darts REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 2,292,786 Hobelman Aug. 11, 1942 2,322,601 Strauss June 22, 1943 

